


Party Reunited

by lady_oneder



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bullying, Eleven | Jane Hopper Needs A Hug, Gay Will Byers, Homophobia, Hurt/Comfort, Long-Distance Friendship, Long-Distance Relationship, Reunions, Sad Eleven | Jane Hopper, Sad Will Byers, Siblings Will Byers & Eleven | Jane Hopper, Stranger Things Spoilers, Will Byers Deserves Love, Will Byers Needs a Hug, Will Byers and Eleven | Jane Hopper Are Best Friends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-06
Updated: 2019-07-06
Packaged: 2020-06-22 05:56:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19661218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lady_oneder/pseuds/lady_oneder
Summary: STRANGER THINGS SEASON 3 SPOILERS!The party has split, but they all got their chance to say tearful goodbyes. Joyce and Jonathan try convincing Will and El that this is a chance for a fresh start, but they don't account for the fact that neither of them are very good at making friends. It doesn't help that both of them are being bullied at their new school. But they did plan to go back for Thanksgiving, didn't they?ORWill and El are having a rough time when the party surprises them with a visit.





	Party Reunited

**Author's Note:**

> The timeline for this is weird, I realize, but I don't care.  
> Raise your hand if you cried for the last twenty minutes of season 3 like I did.  
> I kept thinking about this reunion after I finished the show this morning, so here it is. Of course, I had to put the kids through a rougher time before I gave it to them.  
> But seriously, I loved Billy (fight me), Hopper, and Will the most. Two of them died, and the other was barely there. :)))

Will always wished he could tell his party that things were going great. Jonathan was had a job, and he was becoming good friends with El. Things were never that simple for him. Moving had broken his heart, but Jonathan eventually convinced him that this meant a fresh start. Will could tell that Jonathan was in pain over the separation between him and Nancy, but everyone pretended that things were okay.

Sometimes Will wished he hadn’t given away his D&D stuff, but then he realized that there was no one who would want to start a party with him. They moved a couple of weeks before summer break was about to end, so Will and El would have to start their last year of junior high. El, having never been to school before, was understandably nervous. Everyone tried to reassure her that this would be a great way for her to make some more friends, preferably girl friends as Joyce preferred.

Joyce helped El decorate her new room, laughing when El taped up a poster of Ralph Macchio. She enlisted Will and Jonathan to help her set up her station to radio Mike and the rest of the boys. She helped El hang up her clothes, blinking at some of the colorful choices. Kids these days.

Joyce was more than relieved when El and Will started getting along as siblings, especially since Jonathan wasn’t around nearly as much with work. She walked into the El’s room to see the two of them on the ground with Will trying to teach El how to solve a Rubix Cube. She left before they could notice her.

“Nice poster,” Will murmured, trying to rip his eyes away from the Karate Kid staring down at the two of them. El smirked to herself, turning to Will.

“Hot,” she muttered, thinking about how Max described him. Will blushed bright red and tore his eyes away from the poster.

“S-sure,” Will mumbled, showing her how he made one side all red. El smiled at him.

Starting school, Will and El had gotten pretty close. They walked into school together and stayed pretty close to each other throughout the school day. Part of the reason for that was because El still wasn’t used to being around so many people. Another reason is because no one really wanted to be friends with them. In the back of Will’s mind the words “zombie boy” echoed.

El sat down silently across from him during lunch. Joyce had packed both of them lunches, so they were able to avoid the lunch lines. Will tried to ignore the way he was being eyed by the other kids. El was frowning as she ate her sandwich.

“What’s wrong?” El stopped chewing, her eyes flickering up to look at him. She sighed, setting her sandwich down.

“English class,” El answered. Will nodded even though he wasn’t exactly sure what was wrong.

“Oh yeah? Do you hate reading or something?” She was still learning, so Will thought it was a valid assumption. El shrugged.

“I can’t read the words out loud good,” El mumbled, like she was too shy to even be talking. Her face was turning red, a look that Will had never seen on El before. She didn’t look like the hot girlfriend that Mike talked on and on about or the badass that saved the party from bullies. She looked like a teen with no self-esteem, questioning everything she did. It reminded Will of himself after he returned to school. Will felt himself get angry.

“Did someone say something?” Will asked quietly. El seemed to hunch in on herself a bit more.

“They just laughed…” El mumbled.

“I’m sorry, El,” Will replied, feeling absolutely useless. They barely talked for the rest of lunch, and Will suspected that was because El felt to sheepish to say anything anymore. Up until that class, El had felt pretty confident with the new outfit Joyce bought for her.

Will was silent in his classes as well. Everyone else was constantly catching up with their friends they had missed over the summer. Will spent pre-algebra with his head on top of his arms on the desk, looking around at the group of friends that conversed since there was nothing to teach. He found himself trying to find his friends in the people around the class. At one point, he made eye contact with a boy and flushed and looked away before the boy could call him weird. He was reminded of the poster El had in her room.

Joyce picked them up after school. They both got in the backseat silently. Joyce smiled in the rearview mirror at the sullen kids before her smile dropped, and a guilty expression grew on her face. She stopped attempting to converse with them after a few one-word answers. They would get used to it. High school would start next year, and the kids would make friends even if they didn’t think they’d make them this year.

El and Will laid together on Will’s bed, their head beside each other as their bodies went in different directions. El had her eyes closed with the radio in her hands. Will stared up at the ceiling, trying to blink away the tears from his eyes.

“El? El? This is Mike. Do you copy?” El and Will gasped at the same time when they heard the voice of their friend. Both sat up, their heads bent over the radio.

“Yes, yes! Mike!” El responded cheerfully.

“Hey, Mike!” Will greeted, feeling a strange feeling at hearing his friend’s voice. He couldn’t remember the last time they had been away for so long.

“Hey guys!” Mike said back, clearly excited.

“What’s up, El! Is Will driving you insane?” El laughed when she heard Max’s voice over the radio. She and Will looked at each other, rolling their eyes.

“Will is my best friend,” El said, barely holding back that giggles.

“What? No! Will, stop stealing my friend!” Max teased back.

“It’s obviously bullshit, because Will is my best friend,” Mike’s voice sounded. He was clearly talking to the people on his end even though the radio picked it up.

“Oh, my god, move over,” Dustin said in a frustrated tone. There was some rustling before he talked again. “Will! How’s the connection? You’re closer than Utah.”

“It’s great, Dustin,” Will answered fondly. “You’re a genius.”

“Yeah, I am.”

“Do you want to hear Dustin sing Neverending Story?” Lucas asked. “He’ll do it because he misses you.”

“No I won’t!” Dustin practically shrieked. There were laughs in the background, most likely coming from Lucas and Max. “Besides, they probably have their own song.” Will snorted and looked up at El. She thought for a second before smiling at Will.

“ _So if you’re lost and on your own_ ,” El sang into the radio, making Will die of giggles. “ _you can never surrender!_ ” She had listened to the song quite a few times since Mike stopped their make-out session to sing it. It filled her with a warm feeling that made her miss him even more.

“Oh, my god,” Max deadpanned. They could here Mike laughing before he joined in.

“ _And if your path won't lead you home_ ,” Mike sang back through laughs.

“ _You can never surrender!_ ” The two of them sang together before everyone on both sides of the radio fell into a fit of laughter. After a while, they fell silent, with El and Will looking at each other sadly.

“How was school?” Max asked.

“Uh…” El said back dumbly, not knowing what to say.

“It obviously sucked because it’s _school_ ,” Dustin scoffed. “The real question is did Will finally get a babe?” Will blushed all the way down to his chest. El snorted and pursed her lips. “Is that a no?”

“Leave him alone,” Mike said. The group talked for a bit longer before Will and El heard Joyce call them for dinner.

“We gotta go,” Will said sadly.

“God, it’s so weird for you guys to be together without us,” Mike said, thinking of his best friend and girlfriend tearfully.

“You’re telling us,” Will chuckled a bit before stopping to hold back his cries. El put a hand on his shoulder.

“Bye, Mike.”

“Bye guys.”

* * *

School went on the same with the two of them floating through their classes. Will was crushing on the exact same guy he made eye-contact with on the first day and was cursing his luck. El was becoming more depressed with each day her powers didn’t return. She kept an empty Coke can on her dresser, practicing every day.

Will was alone one night since El got invited to a sleepover. Will thought it was weird since kids didn’t usually invite their entire class over after grade school, but Joyce and El were both excited. Jonathan was working a late shift at his second job, and it wasn’t the scheduled day for the radio, so the party wouldn’t be at the tower. Will was alone.

His mom offered to watch a movie with him when she came back home, but he refused. She went to bed while Will drew by himself in his room. He had stopped using crayons and used pencils for more mature drawings after he left Mike’s house when another D&D session failed. He thought he was becoming pretty good. He had gotten into a zone when he heard a knock on the front door. He paused, his eyes flickering to the clock. It was almost midnight. He stayed silent for a bit before there was a harsher, more rapid knock. He waited for his mom to answer the door, but he didn’t hear any footsteps.

Will got up and peeked into his mom’s room. She was asleep, soft snores emitting from her bed. Will jumped when the knocks rang out again. Chills crawled up his arm as he crept across the soft carpet to the front door. He leaned forward slowly to look through the peep hole. He felt a drop in his stomach before he unlocked the door and flung it open.

El was wet from the rain pouring down outside and from the tears running down her face. She heaved another sob and launched towards Will. Will panicked but wrapped his arms around her anyway. He shut the door and pulled her towards the living room. She continued to cry into his shoulder, thoroughly soaking him with her wet clothes and hair. Her eyes and nose were bright red when she was done. Will had a giant lump in his throat.

“What happened?” El just shook her head and wiped her eyes. “Was it the girls?” El sat silently for a moment before nodding. She looked like she might break down in tears again, so Will just drew his own conclusions and stopped asking. “Did you walk all the way home?” El nodded, wrapping her arms around herself. She was shivering, and Will was concerned she would get a cold. He made her a bath despite how late it was.

The next morning, Joyce was shocked to see El sitting next to Will at the table eating Eggos solemnly.

“El? What are you doing here, honey? Did one of the moms drive you home?” El and Will looked at each other before El nodded. “Are those Eggos? You know you’re supposed to eat something healthier—”

“Mom,” Will whined out. Joyce paused, looking at Will’s desperate expression. She had questions, but she dropped it. El smiled at Will gratefully.

El didn’t try to become friends with the girls after that. Will was eventually able to find out what happened at the sleepover. Before they started picking on how she talked and the way she looked, they had gone about interrogating about who she was before she moved. They told her she was lying about her boyfriend and her other friends. They told her that she and her brother Will were weirdos. It took them telling her that she’d never get a boy to love her with the way she talked to get her running out of the house in tears.

El was always a lot quieter after that. It made Will and Joyce very anxious since she had been getting better at her speech up until their move. She stuck a lot closer to Will during school.

Will’s life didn’t change much until the day he thought he finally made new friends. He was standing aside in gym class when the Karate Kid walked up to him—the one that looked like him, at least. Will was blushing before the boy even made it in front of him. Will had a huge smile on his face the entire time they talked before Will brought up the Ghostbusters and how he and his friends had dressed up like the entire group. In his defense, they had been talking about Halloween.

“You guys dressed up?” The boy snorted, looking back at his other friend. “What are you, gay?” He and the other boys broke out into a rambunctious laughter while Will blushed, the smile dropping from his face. “That’s so nerdy. Do you like Dungeons & Dragons?” Will didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to. The kids were already laughing again. Will didn’t say anything for the rest of the day.

Will was in El’s room the next night, looking at the Ralph Macchio poster on her wall. El was silently flipping through another magazine when Will spoke up.

“Hey, El?” Will whispered. She looked up. “I like boys.” El was quite for a long time.

“So do I…?” El replied in a confused tone. Will looked at her, and she looked genuinely confused. “Like Mike.”

“And Ralph Macchio,” Will whispered. He snorted. “And Matt Dillon.”

“Matt Dillon?” El repeated, putting her magazine down. Will sighed dramatically, making El laugh.

“You’ve _got_ to watch _The Outsiders_ ,” Will exclaimed. He changed the subject pretty smoothly. He reckoned it was probably easier to tell El because she didn’t know the standards anyway. She excepted it pretty easier. “Hey, El?”

“Huh?”

“You can’t tell anyone, alright?” El frowned. “About me liking boys.”

“Why not?”

“You just can’t. Promise?” El’s eyes widened at the words promise and looked into Will’s desperate eyes. She slowly started to nod.

“Promise.”

* * *

It was around November, and they had been in school for about four months. It already felt like four years. They still felt like they never acclimated and only had each other as friends. They were leaving school for the day a little later. By this time, most of campus was already clear of kids, so they were surprised to see quite a few kids still milling around out. They exchanged a look before trying to search for Joyce’s car. They were starting to walk around the building when they heard a loud, long honk from behind them. They turned around to see Steve Harrington with one hand on the horn and the other in the air of sleek red convertible. El and Will’s jaws dropped.

“Where the hell are you losers going?” Steve called out. The kids who had been eyeing the car—but mostly Steve and his hair—turned towards them. A large smile broke out on both of their faces as they sprinted towards the vehicle. Despite never being that close to Steve, the two of them couldn’t help but throw their arms around him. Will made eye-contact with a girl in the passenger seat he remembered as Robin. “Yeah, yeah, I missed you guys too. They missed you more, though.” They didn’t get time to ask who before a loud sound erupted from behind them.

“Surprise!” Will and El jumped and turned around to see their party, all of them with their hands thrown in the air. They were all there: Mike, Dustin, Lucas, Max, and Nancy. It surprised all of them when Will and El simultaneously broke down in tears.

“Holy shit, guys, you scared them too much!” Dustin cried out. They all looked guilty before El ran out to throw her arms around Mike. Will did the same to the rest of the squad, not caring about how hard he was crying.

Mike felt his eyes tearing up as his girlfriend sobbed into him. He looked up with a concerned frown at Steve, the “girl-expert.” He just shrugged. Max tried to look at the rest of the group, but he just ended up looking around at the school kids who were watching the exchange go on.

“I love you,” El cried out into his shirt. Mike felt his heartbeat increase.

“I love you too,” Mike muttered, hugging El tighter.

“Jesus, dude. How did you survive without us?” Dustin teased nervously, very alarmed by Will’s tears. Max and Lucas glared at him. “What?”

“I think they just really, really missed you,” Nancy said tearfully, not being able to tear her eyes away from the emotional reunion. She looked back at Steve and Robin who both had dumbfounded expressions on their faces. The three of them let the kids have their reunion before explaining how they should get back to Joyce’s. They had an early morning since they had to drive all the way back to Hawkins for Thanksgiving.

“We’re going home?” Will yelled excitedly. He and El looked at each other with giant expressions before the let out an excited yell and hugged. Despite the two being friends before leaving Hawkins and being siblings for months, all of them were still very surprised to see how close they were.

“Isn’t it a bit cold for the top to be down?” Robin noted as Steve started to drive off.

“Yeah, but it makes us look cool,” Steve said, winking at Dustin.

Mike still had his arm around El as they sat in the back of the convertible next to Will. The rest of the kids had piled into Nancy’s ride. El couldn’t help but lean over and kiss Mike when she saw them passing the girls from the sleepover, giving them a smirk over her shoulder as they stared after their ride.

Joyce hugged them all when they arrived home, knowing that Steve and Nancy were coming to pick them up. They all pretended not to watch when Jonathan came outside for his surprise, with Nancy running into his arms.

“Cool poster,” Max said when they looked into El’s room, talking about the Matt Dillon poster she acquired. She laughed and looked over at Will. “Your rooms are so cool.”

“I think I prefer Mike’s basement,” Will said quietly. They all gave him small smiles. For the first time in a while, El and Will felt like things were going to be alright.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you liked it. I got sad writing it.


End file.
